Synergy
by dreamoverdrive
Summary: Series of instances where they meet and interact. The two share an undeniable synergy.
1. Space

**While this story may seem disjointed, it definitely does have a story line. I'm trying to keep it fluid and chapters will get longer and more in depth as the story progresses. Feel free to make suggestions as you go!**

* * *

Her fingers kneaded the scarf, twisting it tightly around her knuckles and stretching the imprint of the fabric into her hand. Her lips were bitten raw, her arms felt like lead, and the remaining dregs of emotion swirling around her head made her feel like she'd been left to fall without her 3D maneuvering device with no idea how close the ground was coming up under her.

He told her to go away.

His eyes had glinted hard and bright- his eyes were always so hard now- and he'd stepped away from her, conveying more in his effort to physically distance himself than he could have with a slap. She wished he'd slapped her.

He had snatched his arm out of her gentle, (gentle never worked for her anyways) insistent grip.

_Are you ok?_

_What happened?_

_Are you hurt?_

_Do you need any bandages?_

_Any water?_

She supposed he didn't need anything from her anymore. Not when he could turn into a hulking giant that could crush her between his index finger and thumb. Unconsciously, her fingers traced the ridge of the scar on her cheek.

And yet the urge to protect him was still there. Protect Eren. Protect Eren. Protect Eren.

She didn't know whose voice was repeating the mantra in her head. Sometimes it was hers. Sometimes it was his. Sometimes it was an indistinguishable wordless roar in her ears that she still understood to mean **protect Eren.**

She felt physically sick when she knew he was in pain. She'd take that pain, all that pain, and slice it up with her knives. She'd take that pain and shove down the bloody throats of the monsters that tried to hurt him. She'd shove it in the barrels of the canons aimed at him. She'd use it to build more walls. Higher walls, safer walls, all for him.

He didn't want her walls.

She sensed a presence next to her and she turned to face the newcomer on her bench. Short cropped black hair and fathomless green eyes fixed forward. Levi. The commander she hardly knew but understood more than most of the people she'd trained with just from that familiar look in his eyes.

A calloused hand silently offered her a hard-looking hunk of bread. She took it, sinking in her teeth and ignoring how it scratched her gums. They sat in silence, watching the activity of the maintenance crews before them. Neither of them were builders. They knew this well.

Finally, he spoke. "As a commander, you have to know when to let things go." She turned to him as he continued to stare forward. "Sometimes it's a horse. Sometimes it's a supply caravan. Sometimes it's a sword. "His eyes flicked to her. "Sometimes it's a person."

She stiffened as his eyes bored into her, gauging her reaction. "Holding on too tight can jeopardize a mission." When she continued to stare, he finished, "and your own safety."

Her fingers clenched the corners of the scarf, her joints feeling like molded metal. Any other moment and she'd be icy and cold and aloof but it just _hurtsomuch_ that all she could do was stare. Eventually, she turned back to watch the crews again, sucking air that felt like lead into her lungs.

"He's all I have." Her hands shook at bit at the admission and she tilted her head up higher. She wasn't going to lie to this man. She saw too much of herself in him to know it wouldn't work.

"All you have or all you want to have?"

Her gaze snapped back towards him as he studied her again, this time with a greater intensity. He stood from the bench and said and turned to leave, his hands resting unconsciously on the hilt of his swords out of habit.

He merged into the crowd, leaving Mikasa feeling more alone than before. At least now she knew how close she was to hitting the ground.


	2. Synergy

Her body swung through the air and air rushed past her face with a cool touch. She flew from tree to tree, feeling the solid slams of her 3D device into the wood through the cords. The metal felt like an extension of her body; she felt as if she was her own kind of creature, with tendrils that gave her the ability to fly. It only made sense. If Eren wasn't a human, she wouldn't be one either.

She felt disturbance in the air next to her and glanced to assess the green blur beside her. It was him. She looked back ahead, feeling her shoulders relax. There was nothing to worry about with him. After all, he was the only other member of her species.

They flew in silence, wraiths in the shadows of the trees that no one else would have been able to keep up with. Whenever a titan appeared, they converged on it. She felt his instincts as clearly as she felt her own. It was if another mind had been linked to hers. She could feel the coiled tension in his muscles before he struck and she could feel plans gathering and spinning in his mind, even when there wasn't a threat. She knew, because she was doing the same.

She swallowed back a breathless laugh of exaltation as they flitted at breakneck speed through the trees- faster than she'd ever moved with someone by her side before. How had they never fought together before? It was an entirely new experience to have someone on her level, travelling next to her. Someone she could trust, because the others were just all so _fallible_. It was exhilarating to know she could make a move and have a someone like herself behind, ready lead or follow her when all others would falter. Someone who could take risks. Someone who felt the same single minded determination pumping through each fiber of their muscles.

When they rejoined the main central group, their eyes connected for a brief instant once their feet sounded solidly against the dirt. Green and black merged and she blinked at him as he let a crooked tilt come to his lips for a fraction of a second before his face slid back to impassive apathy.

Then, they were swept up in choruses of 'commander' and 'Mikasa' and pulled different ways into the flurry of people and horses and crates- but she still felt him. It was the strangest feeling. It was as though she felt a tenuous connection to another part of herself that was wandering the crowd. She felt her own instinct, her own decisiveness, her own determination in front of her, leading the company on jostling horses.

She felt his gaze flick back when the first of the titans arrived and she greeted his taut grin of bloodlust with a look of silent affirmation. She felt the pull of his 3D device as well as her own, yanking her into the air besides him. Nothing could stop them. And they knew it.


	3. Fix

Mikasa stared up, disbelief in her eyes and dead promises on her lips. Smoke and steam that tasted like blood and dirt coated the inside of her throat, doing nothing to make her frenzied breathing easier.

"_EREN!"_

She heard a voice screaming his name and she felt her lips moving but she couldn't connect the action to herself. The same way she couldn't connect that hulking, steaming, bellowing creature to Eren. Her Eren.

The steel of her 3D device was uncomfortably warm under her fingers and sticky with blood. Her body felt like it held all the energy in the world crammed underneath her thin membrane of skin. Her fingers twitched to initiate the mechanism that would yank her up into the open air towards him. Towards his crushing hands and steaming eyes and grinding teeth. Oh Eren.

"Ackerman." She glanced to the side, taking in the stoic face besides her watching the destruction. "This needs to stop," he said with an air of terrible finality, his green eyes glinting hard and bright.

She turned back to _him. _No. This was her Eren. Her green-eyed, messy haired, scrawny Eren. He was just confused.

The thing bellowed , it's steamy and gushing hand slamming through a building. The eyes rolled wildly in their sockets as it raised its head to the sky, letting out a ragged shout of victory as brick and human blood slid through his fingers.

She couldn't breathe.

"Mikasa. Mikasa. Mikasa!"

Heavy, firm hands were digging into her shoulders, pale green eyes inches from hers. "Mikasa, get it together. Now."

Things began to come back into focus. A dirt smeared face close to hers. Warm, moist breath fanning across her face. The eyes steeled with a solemn kind of determination she knew too well, and the underlying fear in them was plain to see for those who could understand it.

She took in a shuddering breath, her aching lungs fighting to suck in more tainted air, her fingers unconsciously digging into the shoulders in front of her for support. Support. When was the last time she'd had support?

"Alright," the monotone voice said, the face drawing farther away from her. "We need to fix this before they kill him."

Ice ran through her veins, quick and sharp. She bit her lips hard till the urge to scream clawing up her throat was subdued and nodded, carefully reconstructing the walls that she'd let fall. She'd be damned if anyone even tried touching him.

"We'll fix this." His voice was solid and unwavering as she drew her swords with the sharp _sliiiick _and bent her knees. She felt a bruising grip on her upper arm and she turned to face him one last time before they took off. "Mikasa," his eyes burned hard with conviction strong enough to remind her that her feet were still on the ground and her head was still on her shoulders. "We can fix this." Her breath caught in her throat and she nodded, eyes set, lips pressed together.


	4. Stitches

_The cord from his 3D device shot out in a metallic blur, sinking into a tree to support the arc his body made through the air. His flight was smooth and graceful as usual, and it looking like he was about to curve around the back of the titan for the weak spot when-_

_A gore smeared hand with ragged nails and steam pouring out of lacerations snatched hold of the cord, yanking it to a stop the way a child would yank the leash of a disobedient dog. His body snapped through the air, careening out of his gradual curve to a shuddering slam as he was propelled through the thick brush of the forest. _

_Mikasa saw the world changing around her on its own, her body acting on pure instinct. The steel of her weapon flashed as it met the cord his 3D device with a screech, her arm jarring in its socket on the impact. The momentum of her flight carried her through the cord, though a deep groove was left on her sword from where the two human-made materials had made contact. _

_She swung around to meet the large, watery blue eyes, blinking at her with vague ignorance while the mouth below them dribbled blood from yellowed teeth bared in an empty smile._

* * *

The scout regiments sat scattered around various campfires, the rumble of low conversation creating blanket over the group. Mikasa shouldered through a cluster of scouts, eyes scanning the shadowy scene before her. She continued to the tent she knew was his, the green fabric almost indiscernible in the dark.

She paused outside the tent, her breathing slowing. She hadn't exactly thought this through, and to be honest, she really had no reason to be here. He was a big boy plenty capable of caring for himself but a nagging voice in the back of her head had dragged her here in the dark and cold to stand outside this tent, wondering what on earth was wrong with her.

One more shallow breath in and she opened her mouth, strained words tumbling from her lips. "Captain Levi? Could I speak with you for a minute?"

She bit her lip immediately after and waited several moments. Maybe he hadn't heard her? Should she ask again louder? Or maybe he had heard her and he had chosen not to reply. Finally, the familiar voice sounded from inside. "You may enter."

She brushed through the flimsy material to take in a near empty tent save for a neatly made sleeping roll. Her eyes fell on him, seated on the hard grass floor, impassive face turned up with calculating eyes. Despite his position on the ground, she still felt as though she was struggling to hold her own in the encounter- as usual.

He cleared his throat expectantly and she stiffened, her brain quickly shoving together words to form a sentence. "This afternoon, when-"

His eyes narrowed. "If you're here to remind me of my bad luck, I assure you, I remember."

Her face burned at the memory of him stumbling out of the forest as the titan steamed on the ground before him, eyes guarded with a useless 3D device harness in his hands. But there had been something else... "I'm not here to remind you, I'm here to ask about the wound on your arm."

His eyes narrowed, growing sharper. "I don't know what you are talking about," he said, carefully enunciating each word heavy with unspoken meaning. _Go back to your tent. We both know I'm not admitting to anything._

Her eyes roved over the dark hollows of his pale face cast by the lamplight and steadily replied, "I'm sure that you do." The memory of the dark splotch steadily darkening on the dark green of his uniform burned in her mind, as did his slower than usual reflexes for the rest of that afternoon's ride. She knew what she saw. Their eyes held for several silent minutes, each pitting the full strength of their resolution against the other.

He shifted after, face carefully empty. "What makes you think I'm wounded?"

"I saw it bleeding through. Have you had it treated?"

He examined her again carefully before peeling back a white sleeve to reveal the red soaked bandages underneath. He carefully unwrapped them, revealing pale skin puckered up around the long, thin crimson line of his skin. The wound glistened, leaking streaks so dark they were almost black down his arm with the lack of bandages to bind it. He glanced up at her face and she quickly shielded her alarm behind hastily constructed defenses. "My own weapon did this when I was falling," he drawled, seemingly unaffected by the sight of his own blood. "More and more bad luck."

She stepped forward, kneeling to the ground beside him, taking the small pouch she'd brought with her off the buckle on her belt. She pulled a small bottle of antiseptic out, uncorking it to release the powerful smell in the small space. She let some soak the linen she pulled out, and wiped a needle clean before threading it.

She looked up at him, his grey-green eyes unreadable in the low lighting. He said nothing as she looked back at his arm, wiping it down with the disinfectant. "This is going to hurt," she muttered, pinching the skin together with deft fingers.

"Try me," he replied dryly as she slid the needle through the soft layer of flesh. He tensed for a moment and relaxed, his breath becoming shallower as she drew the needle through the other side. She worked slowly, making sure each stitch was small and evenly spaced. She felt his eyes like burning weights on her fingers, following their progress. Occasionally, she felt him glance up at her face as she worked, and she continued without pause despite the effect of his heavy gaze.

Her throat grew dry as time stretched on and the noise outside the tent gradually quieted. The small flame in the lamp had begun to flicker over its last dregs of oil when she finished, leaning back from the thin red line she'd sewn together. He grabbed the white linen roll of bandages she had set to the side and began to carefully wrap the tended wound, making it tighter and tighter as he went.

She sighed, tucking a damp strand of hair behind her ear with fingers that now smelled like chemicals and blood. She finally met his gaze, his green eyes boring into her with a new kind of curiosity. "Thank you," he said in a low voice, as if unaccustomed to the words. She shrugged, pulling herself to her feet.

"No one else was going to do it."

She felt his eyes on her back as she left the tent, and the feeling stayed with her as she made it back to her own tent. She closed her eyes as she burrowed under her thin blankets, flexing her stiff fingers. It wasn't as if anyone else would have done it for her.


	5. Dream

Mikasa did not tolerate weakness from anyone. Especially herself.

Well, maybe that wasn't true. Wasn't she the one wishing that Eren would do something, say something, or even yell something that would convey some kind of need for her? More and more often, she found herself wishing that he'd find some hurdle he couldn't make it over without her. Was that wrong?

No, it wasn't wrong. What was wrong in this situation wasn't Eren- it was her. She stared up at the white ceiling, trying to slow down the beating of her heart with sheer willpower. Her fingers clenched the blankets at her sides, and the tension in her tendons and muscles felt rewarding as she hissed out a long breath.

She'd had another nightmare.

They seemed to become more and more vivid, colors brighter, smells sharper, and textures harsher. She woke up with the acrid smell of smoke and titan steam in her nose, the feel of splintering wood against her skin, and the sense that her limbs had been rent and that their state of well being when she woke up was the real dream. It felt so real that it took several moments of incoherent panic that involved pinching and shaking body parts to make sure that this wasn't some fantasy and that she wasn't in some hospital somewhere, needles in her skin and sympathetic eyes smothering her in choruses of _but what will we do without you_.

The real shame she felt in this wasn't having the dream itself. Wandering the corridors at night, one would hear all kinds of whimpering and crying from behind the soldiers' unassuming doors. The real shame was that she was the only one in her dream gagging on her own blood in the dirt. Was she truly selfish enough to worry only about her own safety? It made her feel as though she really was the impassive ice sculpture everyone made her out to be. What if she truly was the killing machine with nothing more to live for than her continued survival- waking up to cram more fuel in her mouth before going to kill titans for no more reason than that it was in killing them that she herself could survive.

She shoved the covers off her body, the thin and ratty fabric ceasing to give her any more comfort. She needed to get out of this room, this place. She strode out into the hall, the bare stone beneath her feet feeling like ice. She walked not knowing where she was headed or why. She needed to hear the slap of her skin on the ground to assure herself that she really was alive and not some ghost wandering among the living.

She passed a door and paused, turning back. Golden light seeped out from under the crack. Her wanderings in the dark had almost made her feel as though she had forgotten what light looked like. She took a hesitant step closer, drawn like a moth to a flame. She reached a hand out, fingers ghosting over the wood. There was that word again- ghost. And suddenly she needed to open this door if only to prove to herself that the person behind it would recognize her and prove to her that she really did exist.

Fingers scrabbled with the handle and she practically fell into the room with a newfound fear of the darkness behind her. Green eyes flickered up from the table they'd been staring down at to meet hers and her breath caught in her throat.

"Mikasa?" the voice was low, deep and inquisitive and she sagged against the doorframe. He stood from his seat as she slid down, the will to stand leeching out of her legs. Arms clasped her under the elbows, holding her up as easily as though she were one of the china dolls in kimonos her mom had given her. She felt her feet trailing on the ground as the hands found her waist and carried her to a chair, gently leaning her into it. She sagged back against the hard wood at her back, closing her eyes and letting the light dance behind her eyelids.

After a few minutes, hours, days- who really knew anymore- she opened her eyes again to meet the same green gaze. She still felt too numb to be ashamed and met the gaze steadily. His eyebrows raised but he asked no questions and stood from the table. She followed his progress to a stove where he took a pan off the heat.

They were in the kitchen, she realized, flicking her gaze around before returning it to him. He poured white liquid into two plain mugs he'd laid out side by side. He grabbed them carefully from their handles, careful not to burn himself and returned to the table. His pale white hand set one in front of her with a soft thud and she watched with listless eyes as he sat back down.

They sat in silence awhile longer till he spoke. "Did you have a nightmare?"

She felt like a child, not like she remembered how that felt, as she nodded. Black hair flickered around the edges of her vision and she noted it was growing long again.

"Who died?"

The words were so casual, so devoid of emotion that she found herself replying just as casually seconds later, "Me."

He nodded slowly, eyes betraying nothing. "Drink that," he said, pointing at the cup in front of her. She looked down at the mysterious brown liquid, too light to be coffee and too opaque to be tea. She wrapped her fingers around the ceramic, enjoying how warmth seeped into her skin.

She raised it with trepidation to her lips, eyes locked with his all the while. She took a sip and her eyes widened in what must have been an extremely comical way because the corner of his lips twitched. "This is chocolate," she exclaimed incredulously.

He leaned back into his chair and rolled his neck. "Were you expecting poison?"

She took another sip and the smooth liquid exploded across her tongue again, reminding her of cold days when her father had brought her home a surprise and grabbing fingers as her mom teased her with small, melting squares. "Where did you get this," she demanded and did his eyes just gleam?

"It's none of your business what I spend my wages on."

And she just couldn't help it. A laugh tore its way out of her throat, breaking into the air. The sound was so unfamiliar to her that soon the strange things were bubbling out of her uncontrollably and now his eyes were definitely gleaming and that most certainly was a smile on his face. Her stomach ached and her lungs burned but she just couldn't stop. It must have been the hysteria or shock of tasting something other than gruel after all these years in the military but it was certainly something.

When she finally stopped he'd stood, the traces of a smile still on the corners of his lips and lingering in his eyes. He walked towards the door, his steps slow and deliberate.

"Wait," she called and he turned expectantly, a hand on the doorknob. She paused, unsure of what she was trying to ask him. "Why were you here too," she finally blurted.

His face remained completely straight as he replied, "I dream as well."

He left her with her jaw hanging open to finish her hot cocoa.

* * *

**Just to be clear THEY DIDN'T HAVE SEX. A friend read this and thought that they did? I can kinda see why one would think that but they haven't exactly reached that stage of intimacy just yet. **


	6. Fight

It couldn't be true. It had to be lies.

Mikasa shoved through the people in her way, ignoring their disgruntled protests. Most moved when they saw her coming, quailing off to the side like prey at the sight of the predator. She paid them no mind, furious footsteps propelling her forward as her mind spun.

He wouldn't have. She thought that in these last few weeks that she'd come to understand him. They'd only interacted a few times, nothing more than a handful of words exchanged on each occasion but she'd thought… A defeated breath slid from her lips. She'd thought she could trust him.

She rounded the fence into the grassy training field designated just for him and the feeling of anger so potent it was indescribable flooded back into her, slamming through each and every vein in her body as the roar in her hears reached a climax.

Eren lay on the ground body curled in on itself as if by instinct, trying to make a hollow to contain the pain. His brown hair was muddy and red and she saw blood everywhere. Blood smeared on his clothes, blood on the back of his neck, blood leaking to the dirt, and _**god he was going to pay. **_

She ran forward to the still form on the ground and his head lifted at the sound. His green eyes were hazy and alarmed. "Mikasa," he asked, blood dribbling from his lips as she knelt by his side, fingers smoothing down hair, tracing down his bruising jaw, and pads of her thumbs stroking his temples and eyelids.

"Eren," she whispered, wiping the blood leaking from his nose away with her sleeve.

"Leave him."

Furry filled her and the reddish tint came back to her vision as she stood, every atom and cell in her body trained on him. Eren's gory hands scrabbled at her feet as she stood. "Mikasa," he wheezed, "No. It's for the politicians in the city. They need to hear that he's been keeping me in-"

She slid her boots gently out of his grip, taking a step forward with all the grace of a hunter towards the blank face regarding her with disapproval. Her fists clenched, body thrumming with the familiar syllables. _Protect Eren. Protect Eren. Protect Eren._

"How could you," she screamed, voice uncharacteristically taut, high, and strained as she shuddered with rage.

His eyes sparked and he found himself stepping forward as well, as if drawn to the intense passion she radiated. He couldn't remember the last time he felt this kind of rage stemming from something he couldn't name in the pit of his stomach. He found angry words tearing their way out of his mouth before the logic in his brain could catch up. "Stop acting like a child, Ackerman. Everyone here knows what has to be done except you, you selfish-"

She swung at him, arm a whistling blur in the air with steel-hard knuckles searching for skin to sink into. He stumbled back, fierce eyes narrowing. Both were oblivious to the gasps of the onlookers as wrath and defiance saturated the air between them.

"You'd dare attack humanity's strongest," he shouted, fingers curling to fists and knees sinking into the stance he knew so well, feeling exhilaration and primal anticipation pump through him. His eyes followed her every move, and fixed on her burning coal black gaze.

"You'd have to be human to deserve that title," she hissed, spitting each word back at him with a vehemence that felt like strikes against his skin.

He heard a roar from somewhere or something and his arm was swinging through the air, palm pressed out. She swayed to the side, catching his blow with her elbow with unfamiliar speed. She snapped out an arm trying to get a grip on the bottom of his upper arm to throw him. He spun backwards and away, leg sweeping out for her feet as he dropped down. She leapt over his sweep and lashed out with her own leg, aiming for a solid kick at his chest. Surprised by her quick recovery, he had to reel back and spring up to his feet quickly, whirling to face her again.

They angled around each other, a new wariness in their faces. Neither had fought a fight in which they couldn't rely on sheer speed and strength to better their opponent.

She lunged forward first with a kick aimed at his shoulder. She withdrew her leg quickly when he sidestepped, swinging it around to stand on and used the momentum to pull her other leg up in another kick. He batted it away with an elbow and swung a series of jabs at her with palms and fists. She wove quickly through his punches, redirecting them with her forearms and watching the shift of muscles in his shoulders that revealed his next strike. She swayed to avoid an upward thrust but not far enough and his hand slammed up against her jaw, knocking her back.

She hissed as she stumbled, quickly regaining her balance and ignoring the shouting in the background. She resisted the urge to rub a hand along her stinging chin and narrowed her eyes at him. He opened his mouth but she struck before he could say anything, launching her own series of thrusts. She caught the side of his arm hard enough to throw him off balance and she saw her opening. She leg swung up in slow motion and she watched as his eyes widened and connected with hers. Suddenly the pit of her stomach dropped and the burning blood in her veins felt cold.

Her leg connected hard with the side of his unprotected torso and he flew away from her to be caught by the crowd of yelling people that had gathered. Arms clenched her hard, wrenching her arms behind her back while a firm hand pressed between her shoulder blades, fingers positioned threateningly above her pressure points.

She stood still watching as the people helped Levi stagger to his feet. His hand was pressed against his side and he sagged as though someone had deflated him. She had deflated him.

She felt herself freeze as he looked up at her. Muscles cramped and protested as she stood stock still, eyes fixed on him. He looked at her, resentment clear in his face before he wiped it away, leaving behind indifference. He spit a globule of blood on the ground and shrugged off the people at his sides to stand with his former dignity. He turned and stalked off the field and she watched, feeling her frozen breath rattle around her ribcage.

She was dragged away, the hands at her back almost as unforgiving as the memory of the accusation and betrayal in his eyes.


	7. Human

The church was silent as Mikasa slid through the massive, mahogany wood doors, closing them with a whisper behind her. She took hesitant steps into the large airy room, dyed beams of light from the stained glass windows illuminating small motes of dust that drifted in the stagnant air. She looked carefully down the wide walk way to the end of the uncomfortable looking wooden pews. A bowed head was there, as though in prayer. She knew he wasn't praying.

She took slower and slower steps and tried to make her footfalls loud enough to alert him of her presence to give him time to leave or shout or throw something at her. He didn't move.

Finally she took at the end of his pew, taking in his appearance. His shoulders were curved down in on themselves for the first time she'd seen, his black hair shrouding his face. He rested his elbows on his knees and his hands formed a steeple over his mouth and nose.

She gingerly lowered herself into the seat next to him as flashes of memories raced through her mind. A hard hand snapping up against her skin flitted through her mind, her skin remembering the imprinting of the purple mark on her face. The feeling of his ribs pressed against her leg while he stared, unable to believe someone had finally been able to get him. Eren's accusing eyes when he saw her again later, ice on her face and head being checked for a concussion. The overwhelming, cloying guilt that had absolutely nothing to do with Eren.

She cast a glance at him again. His steely green eyes stared ahead, his body rising and falling with slow breaths.

"I'm sorry," she finally said. The words seemed to echo in the silence as he closed his eyes for a moment.

He took his hands off his face and turned to look at her. "For what?"

His empty voice made her flinch. There was no anger, no betrayal, and no pain. Just nothing. "For everything," she finally whispered. "For them."

He looked back at the altar, his eyes roving over the white marble. They sat in silence for awhile before he spoke so quietly she couldn't be sure if she was imagining his words. "I always knew they were going to die." He leaned back, closing his eyes again. "No one survives very long. I knew they were temporary."

He shuddered before continuing, the strain in his voice becoming more and more palpable. "But then I saw them, smeared over the ground like bugs. It's not like I've never seen anything like it before." He let out a harsh, brittle laugh. "But this time… This time I really felt it."

He looked at her, eyes blazing. "I don't understand." The simple sentence seemed to suck the air out of her lungs as she struggled to find a reply.

"You think that you're feeling till something comes along to really affect you," she said as his eyes bored into her, searching for answers in what she was saying. "You feel as though you've been swimming all this time and all of a sudden you're drowning."

He nodded and they both turned to stare back at the carefully laid out scene for the funeral. Each felt the pull of the altar, the taste of the dusty bread on their lips, and the pulse of blood in their throats and in their temples. How much longer did either of them really have to live?

"Is this what it means to be human?" he asked in a monotone. She turned, eyes wide at the mention of the old insult. He glanced at her, an ironic curve pulling at the corner of his mouth. "That one really got me; the first insult in years to really make me mad." He rubbed a hand over his forehead and then ran his fingers through his hair. "If this is what human feels like, I'm not so sure I want to be one."

She reached out gingerly, her hand coming to rest on his. "I think you're the most human of us all."


	8. Nothing

**I haven't updated in like a month. Oops. But yeah, so thank you to the people who are reviewing because reviews make me happier than I can even tell you. If you guys have any suggestions for this story, I'll take 'em. **

* * *

When Levi let himself in through the door, she was coughing so hard that she didn't notice.

Under the thin hospital sheets, she looked small. He supposed that she always had been small physically, but now she seemed small in a different way. She seemed fragile and delicate, as if one rap of his knuckles would shatter her into jagged pieces all over the spotless linoleum floor.

It made him realize how, for lack of a better word, powerful she had been. She'd projected this aura of strength and intensity. Even when she was motionless, the very air around her seemed to vibrate with the frequency of her confidence. Now, the only thing she was projecting was blood and black virus liquid from her stomach.

He sat down in the chair next to her bed and waited for the fit to subside. The retching sound was deep, ground out from her core. She hacked and her body convulsed while pale hands gripped the sides of her cot. He watched, something telling him that he should do something, but he wasn't sure what that something could be.

So he waited.

Her coughs finally subsided into an irregular ragged breathing and she lowered herself back onto the pillows. She was loud. It was strange to hear her so clearly when before she'd moved with the silence of a predator. Poor choice of words. The real predators weren't very quiet anymore.

Her eyes flicked to him and that's one thing that has remained the same. He felt something that might have been relief if he hadn't buried it so quickly. Her eyes were coal black with a blazing fire inside. They contrasted sharply against her pale skin as her gaze traveled over him slowly.

He smirked a bit. She was the only one with the guts to look at him so openly. No side glances, no darting looks, and no embarrassing flush when he met her stare. No, she was the first one he has met to look at him with such unashamed curiosity. He wondered what she saw.

She frowned at his smirk. "What are you doing here?"

Her voice was raspy and flat. To be honest, he didn't really know what he was doing here. She stitched him up one time, hadn't she? Perhaps this was delayed gratitude. Yet he knew that wasn't true. He wasn't exactly the kind of person to express gratitude. No, something else had called him to sit here beside her bedside.

Maybe it was the look of surprisingly innocent shock on her face when he'd shared his hot chocolate. Maybe it was the look of icy fury that scorched him raw when she'd found him standing over the brat's beaten body. Maybe it was the numbing shock when for the first time in years someone had sent him flying with a blow. He thought that it was probably the rough feeling of her warm callused hand over his when everything had gone to hell.

Who knew. It might just have been that he was bored. That's what he told her anyways. "I have nothing better to do," he replied, stretching his legs out.

She deadpanned and glanced at her hands that were clenching and twisting the sheets. They stilled and she looked back up, calculating. "You always have things to do. I see you, lurking around all kinds of places."

"I don't lurk."

She looked amused for a second but then she had to stifle a cough with a shaking hand. And then her eyes were tired again, and defensive. And he found a foreign thrill of something deep in the pit of his stomach. Something he'd said goodbye to years ago.

Fear.

"Don't do that," he snapped.

She looked at him like he was mad, and well, maybe he was. "Oh, I didn't realize coughing was against the regulations. I'll try and control myself,_ Captain_." Her voice was biting and hard under the strain of the sickness and he held back a sigh.

They sat in silence for awhile. She knew that he wasn't going to apologize and he knew he was wrong. It was a twisted kind of understanding but the tension drained and she closed her eyes.

"I can't remember the last time I got sick. I never get sick." He raised both eyebrows and without opening her eyes she muttered, "No need to be a smart ass."

"I'm your superior," he reminded her, but he can't find it in himself to care. It unsettled him because anyone else would have been through the window and splattered on the wall.

"Sorry, Captain."

"No you're not."

Now her lips twitched "What has made you so obtuse today?"

He grunted. It had been three godforsaken days since she was replaced. Three days since the recruit with close cropped hair and dull brown eyes had been sent to replace the gap next to him in the formation.

Levi hated every second. He was too slow, too clumsy, too hesitant, and too indecisive. The kid had graduated top of his class, at least that's what everyone had told him. Everyone was impressed by him performance, but not Levi. Without that shadow with whipping black hair next to him, he felt almost as though he were going into the field with an imbalanced sword or a faulty 3D device.

It made him furious. He'd never been dependent on anyone before. He'd never needed anyone's help. Help was for the weak. And the weak were swallowed and digested. This was the cruel substitution for the circle of life that had now been looped around humanity.

And yet he'd forgotten what it was like to fight without someone like _her_.

But all he said was, "The squad adjustment is taking some getting used to."

And now it was her turn to smirk and he stiffened because she _knew_. "I bet it is."

He scowled, because this was wrong. He was supposed to be the one with the upper hand. He was supposed to be the one on top. That's how it had always been. And somehow, this tiny creature hacking up her insides was making him feel unsure.

And then she was coughing those lung tearing, grating coughs again and he was watching closely. This time it's worse and she had doubled over as the sounds ripped themselves out of her throat. He watched, nervous energy shooting through his coiled muscles. His hands jerked but he stayed still.

Another thing that frustrated him- helplessness.

But she was still heaving and choking and now anxiety begins to gnaw at him. He stood up. Should he call a nurse? Should he inject her with something?

And then a light spray flecked the white sheets with little scarlet dots and suddenly he was yelling. His hands were on her shoulders and he was holding her steady as she vibrated and quivered with the force of her convulsions.

He's was yelling when white coats burst into the room and tugged him away. He was considering throwing the people that belonged to the insistent hands to the ground but the rational part of his brain held him back. No, these people were here to help.

And a sickening thought reminded him venomously- _You can't help._

They left him leaning against a white wall outside the room, listening to the muffled sounds from inside. Something was beeping, or were his ears just ringing? He didn't know. He was about to go back in and check when a cold hand clasped onto his arm.

He started and spun to see a long faced doctor with vague grey eyes holding on to him. The man quickly let go, as if he realized how quick he had just come to being flipped into a wall and stepped back.

Levi let out a long breath, ignoring the part of himself laughing at the man for thinking he was safer a few steps away. Levi needed to get control. Never lose control.

"She'll be fine."

Levi looked up, his face in check along with his emotions. "Really," he drawled, the image of apathy.

The doctor's face was perplexed but he continued. "We know exactly what she has. It's a nasty virus but she came into it strong. She'll be fine in a few weeks."

Levi ignored anything in him that might have felt relief, and shoved the feelings down beneath the cloud of nothing he had become so good at raising. He'd come too close to losing control. This was nothing. These people were nothing. That girl was nothing.

He nodded coldly at the now baffled looking man in front of him and strode down the hallway towards the exit.

She was sick for another four weeks. He didn't visit again.


	9. Die

**Ok no one even ask me where this came from. My parents were angry at me, I was angry at me, and somehow that translated to this? I don't even know. If anyone cares, the song that inspired this was Is It Me by the Kooks. The darker part may have come from Staying Up by the neighbourhood. I was going to call this chapter Escape but I think the second title is a little more relevant. If you don't like it, I wrote it at 10:30 the night before cross country practice so whatever.**

* * *

Levi pressed his fingers into a steeple as he rested his elbows on his desk. The pads of his fingertips ground together and he gritted his teeth till a dull pain throbbed along his jaw line.

Levi was not an easily shaken person.

He'd seen it all. The thick purple insides of skulls smeared into grass and stone, splinters of bones crackling under his boots, and the viscous red liquid whose smell was quick to seep into his throat and clothes till he reeked of it.

When he saw these things, he compartmentalized it in his head. It went straight to the do-not-think-of-this-because-it-will-ruin-you part of his brain. With the disgust and fear (yes, he'd admit to fear) shoved away to a place where it couldn't extend its paralyzing tendrils into his thoughts, he could do what he had to do because _dammit no one else was going to do it._ Levi was a master of cognitive dissonance.

Except for times like these when the carefully cataloged regions of his mind crumbled like those worthless walls surrounding the corrupted city and he was swimming in the fermented products of his memories.

It usually happened when he was alone in his study, seated in the large uncomfortable wooden chair at his desk filling out paperwork. He'd come to hate the chair with all his being but he sat in it anyway. It would be a waste to throw the thing out. Levi was not a wasteful person.

He'd be staring at little black figures scrawled into yellowing parchment, his neat handwriting copying the messy notes scrawled by the assigned statistics taker when they left on missions. Sometimes the paper was splattered with thick droplets of blood that made the paper crackle when he searched for some kind of legible information. He tried to suppress the morbid feeling of relief when he realized that, no it wasn't legible, no he really did not have to copy down all those numbers, and no he did not have to live through that death toll again.

He hadn't been so lucky this time. He tried to focus on the glistening inky tracks of the black ink but he couldn't ignore what he was writing.

_Thirty-seven deaths, sixty-four injuries. The dead: Bartlet Erikson, Farona Weils,-_

And the list stretched on and on as his hand cramped. His vision became blurry as his mind flitted back and forth between the reality on this paper and the scratch of the quill. The deaths he'd remembered and compartmentalized exploded behind his eyelids when he blinked. He began to hold his eyes open till they stung and small tracks of irritated moisture gathered at their edges.

He still blinked.

_Katrina Simmons- _Crushed under a large yellow foot, blue eyes wide, tongue lolling as the explosion of red came from beneath the titan limb, leaving her head connected by tendrils that might have been parts of her spinal cord to a smashed imprint in the ground.

_Neil Gerik_- Head rolling as he let out piercing shrieks, the grotesque mouth closed around his lower half smiling. The gradual, rhythmic crunch as the body was pulled lower and lower into the mouth, and the shrieking climaxing till there was a gurgle and a crack like a gunshot when the skull finally split.

Levi slammed a fist down on the hard wood of his desk with a loud bang. When he found that it drowned out the screaming choruses in his head he did it again. And again. And again.

Soon he had leapt out of his desk and he was kicking it and yelling nonsense to try and block it all out. The banging, the kicking, the whirlwind of activity- it did nothing to stem the flow of memory from the carnage of the morning but it made him feel better. It gave him a physical enemy.

Finally he stopped, a slouched figure with throbbing limbs and a sore throat, panting heavily. If the titans didn't kill him, the paperwork would.

At that idea he barked something that might have or should have been a laugh. The hundred feet tall creatures that feasted on humankind couldn't get to him but a piece of paper could. He began to stumble to the shining black lacquered cabinet in the corner of the room where he'd kept all the gifts from over the years.

All people ever bought him was liquor. It was amusing because Levi never drank. It was like they looked at him and decided _you, my friend, need some potent alcohol_ _and lots of it_. Either that or they didn't know what else to buy him. Levi sure as hell wasn't going to ask the sleek, fat men that were already condescending for gifts of hot chocolate. He hoped their arteries clogged and that they died choking on their fatty blood. Their gifts of liquor went in the till more visiting dignitaries came to sit in his study like overgrown spiders with glittering eyes and twitching fingers.

Levi yanked the cabinet door open, ignoring the way it banged against the wall behind. The walls were thick. It was as if the architect that designed the place knew that whoever used this office would often find themselves screaming their heads off at one point or another.

He reached his fingers into the glinting thicket of bottles, closing his fingers around one of the cool slender necks. He pulled it out and without looking at the label, cracked the top off.

He wasn't exactly what he was doing to be honest. He had never drank before and the logical part of his mind was methodically listing consequences but the other half was replaying a nameless person being slung into a wall by their 3D device so he didn't really give a shit.

He pressed the smooth glass against his lips and tilted the bottle up. He stifled a cough when the bitter liquid slid over his tongue to leave fiery trails down his throat. The acrid sensation of guzzling it down made his nose protest but he kept swallowing it with irregular gulps.

Anything to keep the dead away.

* * *

Mikasa rapped her knuckles firmly against the door while her eyes narrowed.

Something was wrong. Mikasa always knew when there was something wrong with Levi. They vibrated at the same frequency so it was as though she only had to listen to hear if he was ok.

Well, ok was a relative term. Ok as in he hadn't been digested a pool of demon stomach acid. Ok as in he was still living, breathing, and existing.

She'd been doing her late night stretches- the ones she did when nothing but movement would quiet the chaos in her mind- when she'd felt a niggling sense of unease at the back of her mind. She'd ignored it till doubt rose up in her stomach and she almost thought she'd gotten the virus again when it hit her- Levi. He was in trouble. And Mikasa would be damned if she didn't get him out of it.

She rapped again harder and snapped, "Levi, let me in."

She couldn't imagine what would happen if anyone but her spoke to him that way. She'd seen the frigid looks he gave the others when they breathed wrong. If they'd done this, they'd be committing cheerful suicide.

But Mikasa wasn't Sasha or Armin. She understood Levi. Understanding lessened fear. She knew he understood her too, because it must be his empathy keeping him from trying to beat the living shit out of her whenever she said something particularly agitating to him.

Now she was slowly transitioning to panic. She knew he was in there. For one, there was a warm glow creeping out from under the door crack that signified activity. For another, she knew he was in there just because she could feel it.

Her fingers closed around the burnished door handle and twisted. Locked. She swore and trying jiggling the handle but all that resulted was an infuriating rattle.

She pressed her head against the wood of the door so that her lips were close to the side. "Levi," she said in a voice taut with impatience and fury. "If you don't open this door right this second I'm breaking it down and dragging you with me to hell. Did you get that, Levi? Open the fucking door."

Mikasa knew this unreasonable anger came from reasonable fear for his well being but she just didn't have the restraint left to hold back. She sucked in air and shifted so that her shoulder rested against the door. She prepared to knock into it with bruising force but the wood suddenly swung away, leaving her standing in shock as the light from the study lamps illuminated the pale face in front of her.

He was a complete mess.

His posture was slack, his spine curving downwards out of the sharp attention into a kind of question mark. His eyes had the pale beginnings of purple and black circles underneath and she felt the strangest desire to reach out and run her thumbs over the skin there. His eyes themselves stared ahead, unseeing and unblinking with red webs spread over the whites.

He opened his mouth and spoke in a disjointed imitation of his aloof drawl, "Well what do you want? You didn't come to stare, did you?"

She had barely started to come up with a reply when his entire body slumped like a puppet cut from its strings against the doorframe. Her hands shot out and held him up to draw his arm over her shoulder. He swung awkwardly back and forth as she stepped into the room and kicked the door shut behind her.

The pair made their way to the long couch where she laid him down, making sure his head settled against the thick red cushion gently. His eyes creaked open to look at her strangely as she went to go get his heavy chair from the desk.

She didn't have to guess. She smelled the sharpness of strong alcohol on him the moment he was leaning on her. The shallow breath that had brushed against her neck while she carried him over reeked of the stuff.

She let herself fall back into the chair and watched him as he watched her.

"The chair doesn't make you mad."

She blinked. "Why would the chair make me mad? It hasn't offended me."

He ignored her pointed comment and looked at her as if she were the drunk one in need of an explanation for a simple thing. "Not mad." He paused, his voice lowering to a near silent rasp. "Mad."

She shivered and scowled down at him. "What, are you telling me the chair made you crazy and then drunk? You did that all on your own."

His eyes closed and his head leaned so that it faced the ceiling directly. "You say things other people wouldn't. Rude things."

Mikasa watched her hand as it reached out to brush some of the sweaty hair off his face. "You need to be put in your place," she replied.

A hint of a smile touched his face. "You confuse me."

Mikasa shifted uncomfortably. She felt as though she were intruding. She should have left him here drunk and alone. Yet another part of her felt a sickening worry. What had made Levi get drunk till he was hardly coherent?

His eyes opened and he turned back to face her as if curious at her lack of rebuttal. "You confuse me," he repeated.

Mikasa nodded slowly. "You confuse me, too."

He shook his head sending tendrils of black hair back around his hazy gaze. She brushed them back again. "I understand you," he said while his eyes bored into her face. She felt the overwhelming desire to get up and run away till the searching, penetrating eyes couldn't see her anymore. "I understand you, so why do you confuse me?"

Mikasa shrugged and he frowned as if he had expected an answer to the question. "Why are you drunk," she asked, before he could start rambling again.

"Why not?"

Mikasa gave him a look and he laughed shakily. It was such an unfamiliar sound she almost fell out of the chair. "Tell me why they're dead and I'll tell you why I'm drunk."

"Who is dead?"

"Everyone." For a moment the lighting almost made his green eyes look black but they were back to their familiar color before she could gasp.

"Was it the mission," she whispered, unsure why she was whispering.

He shrugged jerkily. "It's everything."

Mikasa closed her eyes and she understood. The swallowing darkness that waited behind closed lids. When she'd had her fever it had all come back over her. Everything that she had shoved away to keep herself sane. It had all bubbled over till she was wandering in a smoldering dark hell of craggy teeth and shrieking. Voices she recognized from her childhood, voices she recognized from boot camp, voices she recognized from the misty part of her mind that she'd never explored- they begged _make it stop, Mikasa. Make it stop. Make it stop_. She'd screamed her throat bloody through forests with trees made of bleached bone. The sky was black filled with moons of yellow irises and cold pupils and stars that dripped big fat acidic globs of blood over her till she was forced to swallow.

The hospital bed had made her mad. Her fingers gripped the bottom of the grainy wood chair. Maybe this was his hospital bed.

He was watching her with the same strange look in his eyes. Tentative, resentful, curious, and above all hungry. "You know."

"I know," she repeated.

He reached out with a pale hand and she grabbed it. His skin was cold and clammy but it was there. It was under her fingers. It was tangible.

His he took in a shuddering breath. "Don't die, Mikasa."

"I won't."

His eyes grew fierce under the haze of his drunkenness. "Don't say that," he snapped. "You don't get to say that."

She squeezed his hand tightly but he kept speaking, the words jumbling on his clumsy tongue before he voiced them. "Everyone dies. Everyone always dies." His eyes were moving back and forth now over empty space, as if searching for something in the dust mote ridden air.

Mikasa didn't know what possessed her to do it but she shoved him back against the couch so she could squeeze on as well. His skin was damp and clammy but at the same time he was lit with a feverish heat that radiated out. She pressed her nose into his white linen shirt and it smelled like gun powder, steel polish, and stale alcohol. She loved it.

One of his hands came up to tangle in her hair and he left it there. After awhile, his irregular breathing began to steady and he asked, "Are you taking advantage of me?"

She laughed at the weak attempt at humor and pressed against him tighter. "Don't die, Levi," she whispered.

There was a long pause before he finally replied.

"Alright, Mikasa."


	10. Ridiculous

***Leaves this here at 1:30 in the morning***

**This takes place a day to two days after the last chapter. Sorry my updates aren't very consistent but this story isn't getting a whole lot of attention regardless. **

* * *

"Levi, you're being ridiculous."

"No," he snapped with surprising malice. It was the coal black of her pinning gaze that made it hard to think of argument. He resorted to biting out a single syllable and glaring down at her because he really did mean _no_. Even if he couldn't figure out how to voice it intelligently- _especially_ because he couldn't voice it intelligently.

Her eyes narrowed and she shifted. He was looming over her, projecting the force of his resolve but she just stood there, undaunted and unimpressed. He moved closer, hoping the proximity would make her uncomfortable or at least a little hesitant. He could feel the slight heat of her body and the facets in her dark eyes gleamed. "I said no."

She pressed on open palm on his chest, arm bending at an awkward angle from the lack of space and crackling tension. It rested there for a second before she shoved back, fingertips digging into his skin through his shirt. He stumbled back and he felt himself tense.

"Mikasa, do you really want to start-"

"Don't you dare try and intimidate me, Levi. I'm not Eren. I'm not Armin. I'm not Sasha. And unless you think of me as one of them _don't treat me like it_."

He stilled, examining the harsh set her face had taken on. "I didn't-"

"Oh, you did."

"Look, whoever you think you are, you don't have the right to stand in here, in my study-"

"And who, exactly do you think you are, Levi?" Her words were icy and challenging. She cocked an ironic eyebrow as if to say _go on, tell me. This will be good._

"Someone who isn't about to take shit from you."

She let out a sharp laugh. "And I haven't taken enough from you?"

Both of them were silent, eyes clashing, waiting for the other to start one more challenge. Finally, he snapped. "What makes you think that you have the right to ask something like that of me?"

"The same reason I came to stitch up your arm. The same reason I came in here, found you drunk off your ass, and didn't leave."

He felt his breath slow. "And what reason is that?"

Her gaze sharpened. "Obviously one not important enough for you to acknowledge." She turned pointedly on her heel and her hair flicked as she began to stride towards the door.

He lunged forward, clamping a hand of her shoulder. He felt every muscle under her skin tighten and strain into readiness to throw him off. "Wait," he said quietly.

She turned back around, the same hard eyes regarding him with indignation and frustration. He found himself at a loss for words and she scoffed in the back of her throat, starting to head back.

"I'm sorry."

They both froze, each equally surprised by the words he just uttered. She turned back, eyes wide. They could only stare at each other.

"What is it, Levi," she whispered. "What is wrong? Why can't you tell me?"

He closed his eyes and turned away, running a hand roughly through his hair. "You expect me just to open up, right when you ask me to. You think I can do that, Mikasa? You think that's an easy thing for me to do?"

She reached out and clasped the wrist of the hand ravaging his scalp, pulling it back down. "I'm asking you to try," she said softly.

He stared like a cornered animal, half of him wanting to lash out and the other half wanting to crawl under his desk which was the first time he could remember ever feeling that particular sentiment. He closed his eyes. This would be easier to do in darkness.

"It's the statistics." She said nothing, waiting for him to go on and he swallowed with a sharp bob of his adam's apple. "I have to rewrite the statistics. I have to write how many supplies we used, how many were injured, how many died-" He broke off an his lips curled back from his teeth as he took in a seething breath. "And when I rewrite those numbers I see it all again. I think I've forgotten and then it all comes back, right in front of me-"

She pulled his head down so that it rested on her shoulder and he shuddered. He wasn't crying; he was just shaking. Shaking uncontrollably till his teeth seemed to rattle in his skull.

"I'll write them for you," she said fiercely.

"Don't be absurd, it's just numbers."

Her grip on him tightened. "Stop lying. It makes you sound stupid."

"If you would stop coddling me I'd feel a hell of a lot less stupid."

"I'll copy and you can do maintenance on my gear. You won't owe me anything."

There was a pause as he digested what she had just said. Weapons were precious things to people like them. There were few things one took with them outside the walls. Weapons were one of them. They were something from the inside world, a reminder that there was more than a titan filled hell. The fact that she was entrusting hers to him meant more than it seemed.

"You're ridiculous, Mikasa."

"Not nearly as ridiculous as you, Levi."


End file.
